GDC 10: New Band Game Tuning Up for Fall

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Power Gig has one thing the other guys don't: real instruments.

By Daemon Hatfield

Chances are very high that you already own the Rock Band or Guitar Hero full band sets. Maybe you own both. Maybe you also own DJ Hero. Well, Seven45 Studios hopes you have room for one more set of music game peripherals -- peripherals you can use both in the living room and your band's rehearsal space. This fall, Seven45 will release the band game Power Gig: Rise of the Six String on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. While it plays very similarly to Rock Band or Guitar Hero, it's the controllers that offer something unique. Power Gig's peripherals are fully functioning instruments that can be used to make real music. Seven45 calls Power Gig "the dawn of a new era for music games."

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Seven45 is new to the videogame scene and will be handling development, publishing, and distribution of Power Gig. The company is an extension of another company called First Act, which manufactures musical instruments and distributes them in big box retailers like Wal-Mart. It is this experience and retail presence that Seven45 is banking on to give it an edge.

The Power Gig guitar controller.

"Power Gig: Rise of the SixString is meant to be the answer for all of those gamers who have wanted to take their band game experience to the next level; we're confident that players will agree that the transition from the existing games is both seamless and exhilarating," said Seven45 Studios Chairman and CEO, Bernard Chiu. "We believe that there is something unmatchable about the feeling of an authentic guitar in your hands, and Power Gig brings that excitement to all gamers with an instrument that absolutely anyone can pick up and play."

On the lowest difficulty Power Gig's gameplay should be indistinguishable from Rock Band or Guitar Hero. But advanced players can turn on "chording" and play power chords along with the music. You still have a horizontal line of colored buttons along the bottom of the screen indicating which string to play, but numbers falling down the screen will indicate which fret your fingers should be on. This basically adds another dimension to the standard music rhythm game. Seven45 believes Power Gig will stealthily teach users the basics of real guitar playing. The chord progressions you play in the game will be the actual chord progressions of the song. But Power Gig's target audience is gamers, not musicians.

Power Gig will also be compatible with your existing music game controllers and you can use its fancy controller with other music games.

The Power Gig guitar controller is slightly smaller than a regular guitar but has the full six strings. You can plug it into any guitar amp and rock out without following colored notes on a television screen. During our demonstration we were only shown the guitar and weren't allowed to play it ourselves. But Power Gig will also include a drum set and microphone. There won't be a separate instrument for bass guitar and the game won't include an amplifier.

As for the Power Gig game, Seven45 is promising a pretty ambitious storyline. There is apparently a new universe to explore "with its own mythology, politics, settings, heroes and villains, where music rules all." Definitely sounds more involved than the world tour of Rock Band. The onstage characters are presented as exaggerated caricatures, much like in Guitar Hero.

During our demo we heard Jet's "She's a Genius" and Three Doors Down's "Kryptonite." The final game will feature all master tracks. Seven45 says it has drawn the interest of bands and artists that have been holding out on participating in music games due to the fact that they traditionally had little in common with playing real instruments.

Seven45 is fully aware that it needs to price Power Gig: Rise of the Six String competitively, it says. Power Gig will be out this fall. The drum peripheral should be unveiled at E3 along with the multiplayer adventure mode and full track list.